With the fast development of computer techniques, the computer has become an indispensable tool in people's life and work. The Internet has also grown deeply into our lives with the development of computing technology. People can log online with a compute so as to communicate, entertain and work through the Internet. When people log online with a computer or dial IP telephone through Internet, charging becomes a very important job for the service providers who provide Internet services.
In the existing charging system, since the charging service properties of services are different, different charging rates are to be set for charging services of different service properties. The charging services are respectively processed by different charging processing modules, and all charging processing modules are combined to form a charging processing part.
When the charging process of a service is needed, according to services with different service properties, different charging processing modules are invoked. As shown in FIG. 1, service 1 applies for charging, when charging process for service 1 is required, a necessary before-charging process is performed to service 1 by the service processing part. Then the charging processing module of service 1 is invoked by the charging process part to perform a charging process to service 1; in a similar manner, service 2 applies for charging. When the charging process for service 2 is required, a necessary before-charging process is performed to service 2 by the service processing part, then the charging processing module of service 2 is invoked by the charging process part to a perform charging process to service 2; in a similar manner, service 3 applies for charging, when charging process for service 3 is required, a necessary before-charging process is performed to service 3 by the service processing part, then the charging processing module of service 3 is invoked by the charging process part to perform a charging process to service 3.
Although the above-mentioned existing charging system can satisfy present services developed by the service providers, with people's requirement variety and fierce competition of economic marketing, in order to enhance the self competitive power, the service providers will put forward more charging rules or change the charging rules of existing services, so as to attract more clients to adopt the provided services, like changing the existing charging methods of IP telephone service. For example, the original IP telephone service is charged according to “calling number+called number”, while the present IP telephone service is to be charged according to “calling number+called number+transfer number”. When the service provider requires to put forward new services or change the existing charging rules of services, sometimes the existing charging system cannot satisfy the service provider's requests, specifically as follows:
In order to satisfy service provider's requests of developing new services or changing the existing charging rules of services, the charging system is needed to be updated. The work of updating the charging system is usually done by the developer, wherein the developer completes updating the existing charging system by modifying the existing charging processing part or adding new charging processing modules, but this updating may lead to the following defects:
(1) To update the existing charging system, the service provider needs to invest a great deal of human power, material resources and time, moreover, instable and insecure factors may be introduced to the whole charging system after the updating.
(2) In order to develop a system that can satisfy service provider's requests, after completing the charging system development, developer of the charging system has to test the system's robustness, namely, after completing the charging system development, to guarantee quality of the entire charging system, developer of the charging system has to perform activities like experimental testing, if error occurs in the charging system during experimental testing, the developer of the charging system needs to modify the system over again.
(3) After the final charging system is submitted to service provider by the developer of the charging system, the service provider has to make an acceptance testing of the charging system, and organize maintainers of the charging system for training.
Thus it can be seen, because of updating and modification to the existing charging system, the service provider is delayed to develop new services, even more, the service provider may be in a disadvantageous position in marketing competition due to the occasion delay.
To sum up, because the existing charging system is tightly coupled with services, the charging system is of high cost, poor stability and poor reliability, with a limited scope of application.